Tokyo, Day 2: Ginza, Farewell to Gyoza, the Imperial Palace, and Bullet Train Watching

For day two of our adventures in Tokyo, Jason planned a walk through one of Tokyo's most prestigious shopping districts (the Ginza) on our way to Hakuhinkan Toy Park - a huge Japanese toy store. This part of the outing was pretty much all about an activity geared toward Fiona. For the most part, as we walked through the Ginza, we felt like we could have just as well been on Newbury Street in Boston or Michigan Avenue in Chicago. It was just block after block of designer stores (Coach, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, etc.). Compared to the rest of Tokyo, the area was very quiet though, so I wasn't complaining!

After our quite walk through the Ginza, we arrived at the toy store. On the first level there were all kinds of toys imaginable and Fiona enjoyed looking around...

...but then we went up to the second floor and that was where she got so excited she about lost her mind. The entire floor was nothing but stuffed animals. Aisles and aisles and shelf after shelf of every kind of stuffed animal you can imagine in every size from key-chain to life sized. For over a half hour she ran from one display to another hugging them and periodically stopping to say to Jason and I, "I never knew such an amazing store could exist! Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing me here!!"

In the end, she fell in LOVE with this cat and so desperately wanted to bring him home with her. Being that she already had more stuffed animals than we have room for we told her that we'd have to leave him there. She was crushed, but handled it so maturely that while she was in the restroom, Santa might have come along and tucked him away for later this year...

After all the toy store excitement, we were ready for lunch. Fiona and I really wanted to have one last authentic gyoza meal before we left, so I did some searching and found a highly recommended place about a 15 minute walk from the toy store. It was right at noon when we started our walk over and I was a little nervous about how long the infamous Japanese restaurant queue would be. When we arrived, there were about a dozen people in line, but we've come to understand that by Japanese standards, that's not too bad and usually doesn't amount to too much of a wait.

It wasn't long before we were seated with two plates of these delicious gyoza! It's hard to demonstrate without anything for scale - but these were HUGE. Probably two to two and a half times the size of typical gyoza. Regardless, they were amazing! 

As we left, we had to fight our way through the hugely extended line just to get to the stairs. Once again we lucked out with our timing!

I've got to hand it to the Japanese people on their patience. I envy them that quality. Lines make me absolutely crazy and there is rarely an instance that I will willingly wait in one. I just don't have the patience for it. In Japan, no one really seems bothered by it or irritated when they don't move quickly enough. I wish I could say I learned a bit of that patience and brought it back with me. But that would be a lie...

Case in point - after lunch we stopped at a large department store to look for some souvenirs. In total, the store had seven floors. To be fair, seven flights of stairs isn't nothing, but I'd walk them ANY day before I would stand in a line this long for the elevator. But people here just kept happily joining the queue, completely ignoring the staircase they were lined up next to. Maybe it's just a cultural acceptance of a less hurried pace of life?

After our souvenir pit-stop, we made our way over to the Imperial Palace. A teacher at Fiona's school who is from Japan had warned us that it was "a bit boring," but I thought to myself, "it's a palace! How could it possibly be boring?!" Well, lesson learned. Listen to the local!

We walked through the pretty, and very green, grounds:

Then passed trough this gate:

Before arriving here - at the castle moat and the famous Nijubashi bridge. Beyond the bridge you can just make out some of the white on the castle walls, but that's all you get to see.

Oh well, at least we checked it out. We didn't linger long at the castle before we made our way over to Kotsu Kaikan building which offers a terrace with a little cafe where you can enjoy some ice cream while watching the bullet trains arriving at and leaving from the nearby Yurakucho station. It was a nice relaxing end to the day.